A Lesson in Value
by Hikari Kaitou
Summary: Kurogane teaches Fai an important lesson: not everything loses its value when it's broken. Oneshot, KxF


**A/N:** Aww man, I've been in angst mode for the longest time now. As if we need anymore angst with the chapters we've been getting lately. Well, here are the goods. I hope you don't hate it.

The first thing Fai noticed when he started coming to was the terrible searing pain everywhere. He hurt in places he didn't even know existed. And he could taste blood in his mouth. Not a lot, but it was there. There was water, too. It was cold and it was falling on him and it wasn't very pleasant. _It must be rain_, he thought, mainly because his brain refused to supply any other possible explanation, no matter how he tried to coax one out of it. Perhaps that was lucky though, as the other possibilities it might have produced would have been considerably less appealing.

And he was moving, he noted hazily. It was slow, somewhat jerky movement; not smooth enough to be provided by a vehicle. Someone was carrying him. His cheek was resting on the person's shoulder, turned so that he was facing away from them. Fai wanted to turn his head, to know whose arms were holding him so carefully, as though he were a crumbling doll that might fall apart at the slightest upset, but his head and neck hurt too badly. The blond closed his fingers, weakly gripping onto the shirt of the one who was carrying him. It was the only gesture of thanks that he had the energy to offer at the moment.

"So you _are_ alive, then, huh?"

Fai closed his eyes, a small, weary smile creeping onto his lips. Anyone else might have described the voice that had just spoken as rough or foreboding, but for Fai, this voice was like music to his ears. He loved that voice; Kurogane's voice. He could feel the ninja's chest vibrating slightly beneath his aching body when he spoke and for some strange reason, it comforted him. Fai tried to speak but his lips refused to form the words.

"Just shut up," Kurogane sighed. "I can't tell what the hell you're saying anyway."

Fai shut his mouth obediently and focused his energy on trying to remember why he felt so shitty.

For a moment, he drew a complete blank but then the memories started drifting back and the pieces of the puzzle began to come together. He had gone out by himself for a walk, just to clear his head and observe the nightlife of the foreign city. It was one of his favorite things to do on their journey across dimensions: people watching. He had tried talking Kurogane into coming along, of course, but the swordsman had bluntly refused. So Fai had gone out on his own and for a while, everything was going just fine.

Somehow, though, he had managed to wander into a bad part of town and that's when the shit hit the fan. He had been passing by a dark alleyway, just starting to consider turning back and heading home when someone jumped out of the blackness and grabbed him. They pulled him into the dark and slammed his back against the brick wall of the neighboring building. Although he could hardly even make out the silhouette of his attacker, he could tell that there were several of them. The one who had grabbed him had a hold of the front of his shirt, pinning him to the wall and Fai could feel the cold metal tip of a blade being held to his throat.

"Your wallet, you son of a bitch! Now!" his captor hissed threateningly.

Fai had just smiled calmly at the dark figures. "And what if I say no?"

"What do you think, dumbshit?" the mugger growled in reply, pressing the knife a little harder against Fai's neck.

The wizard just continued to smile at them and for a split second, the gang of muggers was confused. They were used to getting their way as soon as they snatched their victim but this tall skinny guy here was just grinning at them as though he didn't have a care in the world. Their surprise wore off pretty quickly, though, and then were they ever pissed. They didn't like being stood up to.

Fai had managed to squirm out of the way enough to avoid the worst of the blow, but not enough to miss it entirely. He bit back a gasp of pain as the knife grazed his shoulder, drawing blood. The gang members surrounded him, blocking off his exits. Apparently, the few seconds he had taken to make this observation had been a few seconds too long; someone punched him hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him, bringing him sharply to his knees.

The moment he was on the ground, his attackers started kicking him, all of them at once, over every inch of his body. Fai knew that there were too many of them for him to take on at once without the use of weapon or magic and at the moment, neither one was an option. He did the only thing he could think of at the moment with his world crumbling down around him: he curled into a ball, drawing his knees up to protect his chest and stomach, and covering his head with his arms. The gangsters seemed to take this action as some kind of challenge and started kicking even harder, and one of them began picking up stones and whipping them at the defenseless wizard.

Fai could feel warm blood dripping down from his mouth as one of the kicks managed to catch him right in the face. They didn't show any signs of slowing, either. At this rate, Fai would be dead in a matter of minutes. He may have been too, if it weren't for the rather timely arrival of a friendly face. Actually, the face was far from friendly: eyebrows knitted in a fierce glare, teeth bared in an angry snarl, blood red eyes blazing furiously in the darkness. Despite all that, it was the face of Fai's one true love, his savior, his knight in black armor: Kurogane.

Kurogane had snapped some angry words at the gangsters, though at the time, Fai had lacked the ability to make any sense out of them, then quickly drew his sword with a sinister swish. There had been a brief clashing of blades, a number of punches thrown and enough cursing to curl your mother's hair. The leader of the gang, also the one who had grabbed Fai, was drawing shallow, ragged breaths as he forced himself back onto his feet and drew a pistol from inside his jacket. With his final moments, he took aim and fired at Fai. During this time, however, the blond had been fiercely hanging on to consciousness by nothing but his fingertips and it slipped from his grasp so that the last thing he saw was a large, dark shape throwing itself in between him and the gang leader…

That was all Fai could remember before things went rather dark. Obviously, Kurogane had managed to survive being shot at but that didn't necessarily mean that he hadn't been badly injured. If there was someone who needed rescuing, the ninja would ignore his own injuries until that person was well out of harm's way, regardless of how seriously he was hurt. Fai took a deep breath before attempting to speak again.

"Kurosama…" he slurred, "…are…you hurt?"

He couldn't see Kurogane's face, but he still recognized a guilty silence when he didn't hear one.

"Is it bad?" Fai asked, dreading the answer.

"It's nothing," Kurogane replied stoically. Somehow, Fai wasn't convinced. Perhaps it had something to do with the perspiration he could see rising from the ninja's every pore, or the somewhat labored quality of his breathing.

"How very… like you… to say so… Kuropun," Fai choked through his own pain. "But…Mommy can…always tell when…Daddy's in pain…so don't say…it's not bad…when it really is…"

Again, Kurogane said nothing. Just getting out those few sentences had taken a lot out of Fai, so he too was silent for the remainder of the trip, resting his head on Kurogane's solid shoulder and trying to ignore the stinging of the rain on his wounds.

It seemed like forever before Kurogane finally got them to the small house they were borrowing during their stay in this world. He opened the front door with great difficulty and pushed his way into the house. Everything was quiet; the younger travelers and their small white companion had long since gone to bed. Doing his best to make as little noise as possible, Kurogane carried Fai into the room they were sharing and laid him down on the bed as gently as he could. Fai frowned slightly, noticing the terrible strain showed on Kurogane's face when he had to use both arms in order to do this.

When the swordsman drew away from him, Fai saw his injury, and it made his stomach feel as though it had turned to ice. There was a bullet hole right in Kurogane's shoulder, which had been hastily bandaged with a torn piece of cloth. The scrap of fabric was saturated with blood and there was a steady flow of it running down his wrist and fingers then dripping onto the floor. Fai was so consumed by his guilt over having been the cause of this injury that he didn't even notice Kurogane vanish to retrieve a first aid kit from the bathroom cupboard and then return faithfully to his side.

The wizard was brought back to earth by a slight popping sound as the case of the first aid kit was opened and Fai forced himself into a sitting position. He took the bandages from Kurogane and began to dress the ninja's wound, his hands moving quickly and confidently as though he had done this sort of thing countless times before. Once he had finished wrapping it, his fingers moved down to Kurogane's hand, stroking the palm lightly.

"This is all my fault," Fai whispered. "I'm the reason you're so badly injured now… I did this…"

Kurogane lifted his good hand to the magician's cheek. "Hey. Quit worrying about it, alright? You didn't know something like this was going to happen. Anyway, I chose to step in and save you. No one forced me."

"You shouldn't have done it, Kurotan… I'm… I'm not worth this kind of suffering…You should have just… let me die…"

Kurogane snarled and forced Fai to look at him. "Listen to me, you bastard. You know how I hate people who don't appreciate their lives. Don't you dare insult me by saying I should have let you die."

He let go of Fai's chin and began to bandage him up in silence. The tension between the two of them was so thick it could have been cut with a knife. Kurogane's attention was split between the awkwardness of the smothering silence and the task of wrapping strips of gauze around Fai's battered arms, so it took him a moment to notice that the magician was trembling. He leaned forward slightly, squinting through the darkness as he tried to make out the expression on Fai's beautiful face, but the blond's copious bangs hid his eyes from view.

"No matter how hard I try, I always end up hurting someone," Fai whispered, his voice surprisingly steady. "I thought maybe, if I wouldn't let people get close to me, I could lessen the chance of causing them pain later on down the road… I suppose it was naïve of me to think that would work, hmm? …But still…I have a hard time understanding why…anyone would risk their life to save…someone who isn't even whole…"

Kurogane stared at him, his frown deepening slightly. Then he sighed heavily and reached slowly into his back pocket. Fai watched, nonplussed, as Kurogane drew out his wallet. Ignoring the confusion on the magician's face, he opened the wallet and took out the highest bill he had. He held it up for Fai to see.

"Would you say that this is worthless?" the ninja asked.

Fai just stared blankly. "…I'm afraid I don't—"

"Just answer the question."

"…No, it's not worthless."

Kurogane's ruby-red eyes remained fixedly on Fai, watching him carefully. Then he suddenly crushed the bill in his fingers, startling his companion. Fai looked on in bewilderment as the swordsman continued to abuse the money; crumpling it, folding it, wadding it up, stamping on it. Through all of this, Kurogane's gaze never left the other man's face. Once he was finished, he stretched the bill out in front of Fai's face.

"Now is it worthless?"

A puzzled frown marred the wizard's features as he gave his uncertain answer. "…No. It's still worth exactly the same amount as before…"

"But look: it's all ripped and crumpled. Doesn't that change the value?"

"…No…"

"See, even though the money is all beat up and worn and even has some pieces ripped off, it's still worth exactly the same amount as it was when it was first made. The scars don't decrease its value at all."

Fai's eyes widened as the ninja's words suddenly made sense to him, and he felt as though someone had reached into his chest, grabbed onto his heart and was squeezing it. Kurogane turned his attention to the battered currency in his hand.

"There are some people who have so much of this stuff that if they saw a bill in this condition, they would just throw it away because they have hundreds of others just like it to take its place," he said quietly. "But to someone who has never had much money, this one piece of paper would be like a godsend to them. They wouldn't care that it's in bad shape. They need what money they can get and appreciate every bit that they come to own. To someone like that, the worth of this bill would seem triple what it's worth to the average person, and they sure as hell wouldn't give it up without a fight."

Fai hesitated before slowly wrapping his arms loosely around Kurogane's neck, being mindful of his injured shoulder, and leaned against him. The swordsman returned the embrace with his good arm, holding Fai close, sharing the warmth of his body with the trembling magician.

"To hear you say that…means so much to me," Fai whispered, his voice muffled by Kurogane's shirt. "If there's anything I can do to repay you…"

Kurogane leaned forward, helping his companion lie down on the pillows behind him.

"You can sleep," he replied. "If you don't, you won't be able to wake up tomorrow and that's just more time we'll have to spend in this damned hellhole."

Fai crawled obediently under the covers, very carefully so as not to aggravate his wounds. Then he looked pleadingly up at the ninja. "You'll stay with me, won't you?"

Kurogane was silent for a moment, and then heaved a sigh and slid into bed next to Fai. "I guess so…"

Fai's smile returned, though it was different from the one he usually wore somehow. This one was more…genuine.

"Thank you, Kurochan. Good night….I…I love you…"

"Hmph," Kurogane grunted as Fai snuggled up close to him. Fai wasn't bothered by this reaction, though. The way the swordsman held him said that he felt the same.

**A/N:** I don't really like how this turned out. It seems clichéd. School starts in two day. Shitshitshitshitshit. I don't wanna be a senior…


End file.
